70 LITERARY PILGRIMAGES 



place as the echoes. Like them he flies back and 

 forth from shore to shore till you wonder whether 

 he is trying to keep pace with them or whether he 

 is the embodiment of one that does not need to be 

 set going by a word but has volition of its own. 

 The kingfisher's voice hardly seems to belong at 

 Walden, it is so harsh and unlovely. Even in this 

 very school of sweet echoes it has learned neither 

 modulation nor singing quality. Far different is 

 the gentle peet-weet of the sandpipers which pre- 

 cede you along shore in scalloped flight. Something 

 of the bright sweetness of the hedge hyssop strolls 

 along the moist stones of the margin with them, 

 as if the two became yearly more and more re- 

 lated. Each fall I think the olive-fuscous backs 

 of these little birds get just a little more of a 

 golden tinge from this continual neighboring with 

 the equally gentle, friendly Gratiola aurea. If in 

 return some fine summer the hedge hyssop should 

 blossom into twittering song no one need be ter- 

 ribly surprised. 



In contrast to the fearless rattle of the king- 

 fisher as he echoed from shore to shore and to 

 the twittering, friendly sandpipers who ran so 



